Undernews is the online report of the Progressive Review, edited by Sam Smith, who has covered Washington under nine presidents and edited alternative journals since 1964. The Review is an online journal and archive of alternative news. It has been on the web since 1995. See main page for full contents

Friday, July 11, 2008

CORPORADOS PACKING LESS IN SAME SIZE BOXES

MSNBC - With fuel and delivery costs rising, food manufacturers are faced with raising their prices or giving you less, and it seems that less is the growing trend. . . Tod Marks, senior editor for retailing at Consumer Reports, says you're not imagining things. What the consumer protection Web site Consumerist.com calls the Grocery Shrink Ray is hitting products all over the store. The practice is called short-sizing, and it's becoming increasingly common to shrink how much stuff goes into the same old box to keep costs down. . .

Inspectors found two boxes of Stop & Shop brand shredded wheat cereal in supermarkets. One was 19 ounces. The newer one was 18 ounces. The boxes were identical, as were the prices. . . General Mills made a similar move earlier this year. NBC News found two boxes of the company's Cheerios cereal on sale in a New York supermarket. Both were $3.39. One was 10 ounces; the newer one was 8.9 ounces.

Your editor has been a
musician for many decades. He started the first band his Quaker
school ever had and played drums with bands up until 1980 when
he switched to stride piano. He had his own band until the mid-1990s
and has played with the New Sunshine Jazz Band, Hill City Jazz
Band, Not So Modern Jazz Band and the Phoenix Jazz Band.

APEX BLUESSam
playing with the Phoenix Jazz Band at the Central Ohio Jazz festival
in 1990. Joining the band is George James on sax. James, then
84, had been a member of the Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller
orchestras and hadappeared on some 60 records.More
notes on James